Thursday, December 19, 2013

On Reading Flannery O'Connor's "The Train"

As Flannery O’Connor often does in her work, “The Train”
puts you in the head of a character that feels absolutely certain about his
convictions, so certain that his views of the world can be nothing else but
stilted and convoluted. This time the title character comes in the form of Haze,
Haze from Eastrod, Tennessee. Eastrod means something to him, and he affirms this
fact over and over, uttering it mentally and verbally in an effort to both earn
respect and goad the train’s negro porter into a state of fear: “I was raised
in Eastrod, Eastrod Tennessee; he thought about the porter again. He was going
to ask the porter… the porter would know Eastrod” (O’Connor 55-56). Yet, as
mentioned above, O’Connor delves into Haze’s uncertainties. At one moment he
loves the women he is to share a car with as she is chatting his ear off, the
next he loathes her, only to soon have a reversal of fortunes. Likewise, in his
memories, his mother always started conversations only to later, when he
loathes his travel-mate, be characterized as the exact opposite.

Haze thus exemplifies characters that dot O’Connor's
literature, ones with no certain home, no certain realm, and an overall lack of
personal understanding despite their thoughts to the contrary. They are
uniquely honest and human, just like the reader, and this quality draws one in,
forcing us to acknowledge our own deficiencies. Adding to Haze’s problems comes
his overall lack of confidence—he wants to investigate the porter but is afraid
to go there, he wants to enter the dining car, but when told to wait feels a
wave of embarrassment that haunts him. All eyes are on him, judging, condemning,
looking down on the man from Eastrod, because he is from Eastrod: “He ordered
the first thing on the menu, and when it came, ate it without thinking what it
might be. The people he was sitting with had finished and, he could tell, were
waiting, watching him eat” (59). These people are most likely not only ignoring
Haze, but probable would have cared about his presence only enough to start
casual conversation.

As expected, Haze is to confront the porter multiple times,
and in doing so, he is to question the man, probing his past, trying to see if
he is related to Cash from Eastrod. In Haze’s mind, this fact is a resounding
yes. The porter must be Cash’s kin, must be his son, and due to this fact, the
confrontation displays a moment one expects from O’Connor, where the title
character, feeling all high and mighty, is ripped from their throne and tossed
into a sea of uncertainty. It is with this feeling that the piece culminates,
leaving the reader uncertain as to fate of Haze, his mother, the porter, and
little Eastrod.

Favorite lines: “The way things happened, one thing right
after another, it seemed like time went by so fast, you couldn’t tell if you
were old or young. She looked as if it had been cheating her, going double
quick when she was asleep and couldn’t watch it” (55). It exhibits the grace
that O’Connor often has and works to keep common idioms fresh and new.

“He wanted it all dark, he didn’t want it diluted” (61). The
line resonates, speaks to Haze’s mindset while giving a strong physical
description of the setting.

“The tracks curved and he fell back sick into the rushing
stillness of the train” (62).